


you bring color to my grey skies

by driedupwishes



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Painting, idiots flinging paint at each other when they should be actually painting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 14:03:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3770968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/driedupwishes/pseuds/driedupwishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Armin could have had his way, he would have wound his arms around Jean’s neck and pulled him down to the ground, so that they could just lie there in the sunlight all afternoon instead of work. But Jean, for some reason, had promised his mother they’d paint his cousin’s baby room, volunteering Armin’s minor artistic talent and both of their time after only ten minutes of the woman pestering him. Scattered across the plastic covered floor where several different buckets of paint, in a variety of colors, and clenched in one of Jean’s hand was the vague unhelpful description of what the woman having the baby wanted done to the room’s walls.</p>
<p>“Come on,” Armin said, because Jean wasn’t likely to be the pushing force behind this work getting done. He was still eying the paint brushes like they were going to bite him. It was kind of adorable, but mostly ridiculous. Like Jean in general, actually. God, Armin loved him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you bring color to my grey skies

“Okay, so,” Armin said, eying the room, lit by sunlight as it was. “You take that half and I’ll take this half?”

Jean groaned, loud and overdramatic in the lazy autumn afternoon. Armin rolled his eyes at his boyfriend, feeling his lips pull into a smile when Jean glanced over at him, like he was trying to be covert about the way he looked at Armin. Jean liked to look at him when he thought he wasn’t paying attention, eyes drifting, lips tugging into a smile. It never failed to make Armin’s chest clench as a wave of warm affection spread through his body, making him light headed.

If Armin could have had his way, he would have wound his arms around Jean’s neck and pulled him down to the ground, so that they could just lie there in the sunlight all afternoon instead of work. But Jean, for some reason, had promised his mother they’d paint his cousin’s baby room, volunteering Armin’s minor artistic talent and both of their time after only ten minutes of the woman pestering him. Scattered across the plastic covered floor where several different buckets of paint, in a variety of colors, and clenched in one of Jean’s hand was the vague unhelpful description of what the woman having the baby wanted done to the room’s walls.

“Come on,” Armin said, because Jean wasn’t likely to be the pushing force behind this work getting done. He was still eying the paint brushes like they were going to bite him. It was kind of adorable, but mostly ridiculous. Like Jean in general, actually. God, Armin loved him.

“Don’t wanna,” Jean muttered, grinning crookedly to show he was only teasing. Armin shot him a look and he laughed, stooping to open up the paint containers. He struggled, swearing a little under his breath, until Armin rolled his eyes and took pity on him. He knelt down, opening the canisters up with an easy practiced motions, snorting when Jean’s mouth fell open in surprise.

“Grandfather was a painter,” Armin reminded him fondly, glancing up only to be mesmerized by the way Jean’s eyes went from hazel to liquid gold in the sunlight. Kissing him would have been wonderful, but if Armin started to kiss him now he’d never stop.

“You’re such a fucking wonder,” Jean said, balancing on his heels as Armin opened each canister in a tenth of the time it would have taken his boyfriend to complete half the same task. Armin smiled, feeling his cheeks heat at the compliment, twisting so that he wasn’t facing Jean when he tucked his hair out of his face to hide the blush. When he glanced back a few second later Jean was staring at him, warm and fond and smiling, just like he always was when Armin looked away.

“You’re gross,” Armin told him, feeling suddenly like he’d been spending too much time with Eren. It was a very Eren response, but despite that Jean didn’t seem to mind, grinning even more and shrugging slightly.

“Yeah, but I’m gross for you,” he said. He made a face when Armin snorted, crossing him arms defiantly as his cheeks flushed pink. “Okay, shut up, that came out wrong.”

“How about you shut up and start laying down the base coat,” Armin said, rolling his eyes to try and hide how hard he was grinning. Jean grumbled, but did as he was told and for a little while they worked in peace, pouring the paint into the tray before coating the rollers in it and starting to work in earnest. They coated two of the walls in the first coat without issue, sharing only a few words as the sun warmed room started to take on a faint blue tone from the light blue paint they were applying, but Armin knew that could only last so long.

Sure enough halfway through the third wall Armin heard Jean start to mess with something behind him, rustling the plastic covering the floor restlessly. He rolled his eyes at the sounds, deciding that if Jean hadn’t settled down in a little while he’d suggest going to find some sort of radio or speaker system to hook one of their phones up to, as a break for his boyfriend and also to fill the silence.

But Jean made his move before Armin could suggest anything at all.

“ _Shit_ ,” Armin yelped suddenly, whirling to look at Jean. His back was suddenly wet through his tank top, in splotches of heavy gooey liquid that felt a fuckton like paint, slinking down his spine in a way that made him shiver. Jean stood only five feet away, paintbrush in his hand where the paint roller shoulder have been, the bristles dripping green.

They were painting with blue.

“ _Jean_ ,” Armin said, exasperated. “What are you _doing_?”

“I, uh,” Jean said. He looked honestly startled, like he hadn’t meant to flick Armin with a back full of forest green paint, and Armin considered taking pity on him. But one glance behind him showed that Jean’s slip up had speckled the wall in little dots of green, in a way that was going to be an absolute pain to cover up.

There were two ways Armin could have handled this, as the usually more level headed of the two. He could have rolled his eyes, told Jean it was fine, and then they could have gone about blotting the green paint and then started the long and tedious process of correcting the accident.

Or he could do what he did, which was to drop to his knees, haul the nearest paintbrush and canister over to himself, and flick his boyfriend with a spray of purple before he could so much as finish the sentence, “Armin what the hell are you doing?”

Jean yelped when the paint coated his legs and torso, purple against the navy blue of the shirt Armin had told him not to wear, just in case things got messy. Armin felt his lips curve as Jean glanced down, eyes bugging out at the sight of paint on one of his favorite shirts.

“I told you things might get messy,” Armin said, reaching up to push his hair out of his eyes. He had the brief thought that he hoped there wasn’t paint on his hand, because that would be a bitch to get out of his hair, but that fled as Jean’s face shifted, morphing from annoyed to downright devious.

Armin shivered at the sight, more turned on than he’d like to admit at the sight of Jean towering above him, eyes bright, sunlight casting glowing shadows on the muscles of his forearms as his fingers curled tighter around the paintbrush in his hand.

“You’re going to pay for that,” Jean said, a threat and a promise, just the way Armin loved. Armin felt laughter bubble up in his throat as he scrambled to dip the paintbrush in his own hand back in the purple paint, thoughts of being a fucking adult and doing what they should fleeing from his brain without so much as a backward glance.

“En garde, fuckboy,” Armin taunted, knowing that nothing riled Jean up more than that. It had been Eren and Mikasa’s go to taunts a few months back and Jean flushed at the words, nose twitching like a pony’s, before he lunged Armin’s way.

Their paint war was not pretty, nor was it in any shape, way, or form responsible. The walls were splattered, the ceiling was splattered, the fucking windows were splattered; there were no survivors left in the wreckage, no innocence left untainted. Armin lay on his back, feeling the ooze of the wet paint clinging to his skin and clothes, panting a little bit as he watched the last of the sunlight sink below the windowsill. Jean lay a little ways away, in a similar fashion of disarray and exhaustion, and when Armin craned his head to look at him he found his boyfriend staring, again, mouth curled into a contented smile.

“Your cousin’s going to slaughter us,” Armin muttered, closing his eyes. He heard Jean sit up, the crinkle of the plastic thankfully protecting most of the floor giving his movements away. Armin wasn’t too worried about a sneak attack, as they had called a truce just before collapsing and Jean wasn’t the kind of underhanded bastard to try pulling a backstab on him.

Armin was though, which was why his paintbrush was still clenched in one hand, but that was neither here nor there.

“Yeah, probably,” Jean admitted, a little laugh curling around the edges of his words. “We might be able to wriggle out of our impending deaths if we can convince Eren to get his ass out here and do something with the abstract mess our fighting made of the walls, though.“

Armin smiled at the idea, even though he knew it was going to be a bitch and a half to get Eren out here to agree to it. He hated cleaning up someone else’s mess. He always complained that he spent so much time cleaning up his own that it was ridiculous to expect him to help clean up theirs too.

Armin always calmly reminded Eren of the time in sixth grade where he single handedly kept him from being arrested and possibly thrown in juvie. If that didn’t sway Eren to stop whining he had a million other similar scenarios to bring up and, if absolutely necessary, blackmail in the form of Eren’s current crush to use over his head. There were no lengths Armin wasn’t willing to go to if it meant they didn’t have to try and fix this paint splattered Pollock type mess alone.

A shadow fell over Armin’s face while he was thinking and he opened his eyes, not too wary, to find Jean hunched over and extending a hand his way. He was grinning down at him, warm eyes and messy hair, and Armin felt a clench in his chest and a heat in his belly that was hard to ignore. He reached up, taking Jean’s hand and letting him pull him to his feet, swaying in his grip for a second as he got his feet under him. He planned to step back and survey the damage, maybe turn on the light overhead now that the sun was going down, but Jean had other plans.

Jean cupped his jaw, stepping closer until they were chest to chest. He leaned down, not much since they weren’t that far apart in height, but enough so that their noses brushed, breaths mingling lazily as Armin started up into warm golden hazel eyes. Jean’s messy paint covered hands slid up his jaw, leaving smears that Armin would struggle to be annoyed about later, and then into his hair, nails dragging ever so slightly against his scalp in a way that made him lean forward, craning into the touch until they were flush together from their knees to their chests.

“Hey,” Jean said, like the big dork he was. Armin craned his head up, bumping their noses together slightly and snorting when a bit of paint on his nose smeared onto Jean’s.

“Hey yourself,” Armin answered back ruefully, reaching up to curl his fingers around Jean’s forearms to keep him close. Jean smiled at him even more, until the corners of his mouth were stretching for his ears, and Armin couldn’t help but grin back, smiling until his face hurt.

“I love you,” Jean said, low and private and sweet, the affection in his voice dripping like the paint in Armin’s hair.

Armin breathed him in, the scent of Jean and paint and faintly like sunlight, his heart thundering in his chest. “I love you too,” he whispered, leaning up as Jean leaned down. They kissed, Armin sliding his hands up until his arms were wrapped around Jean’s neck, slow and sweet for a few long, pleasant minutes, and only drew away from each other at the sound of the front door of the house opening on the first floor.

“Oops,” Jean muttered, tipping his head so that their foreheads were still touching, even though their mouths weren’t. “Looks like it’s time to go face the music, huh?”

Armin thought about it for a second before humming, shaking his head ever so slightly so that their noses bumped and rubbed together in an eskimo kiss.

“Kiss me,” Armin said, pulling Jean down so that the words were pressed against his boyfriend’s lips. “Just one more,” he said, knowing Jean wouldn’t say no. “In case she really does kill us for the mess.”

Jean laughed against his mouth, the rumbling sensation in his chest vibrating into Armin’s chest as well. “When you put it that way,” he drawled and Armin laughed, smiling against Jean’s lips as the other ducked to swallow the sound of his happiness – their happiness – from his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> gabe was sleepy and saw a picture yesterday of paint splattered jearmin and requested I spend my nightly I-can't-write-actual-things drabble writing that so I did.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed!


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